ASIA-PACIFIC – SINGAPORE, OCTOBER 7, 2011: Out There Media, a global leader in mobile advertising, today announces the unprecedented market and consumer acceptance of its opt-in mobile advertising model, highlighted by impressive results achieved in key markets in Asia. These range from 17 to 36%, and were recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines over the last six months.
Fabrizio Caruso, managing director of Out There Media in Asia Pacific, said, “As the pioneers of opt-in mobile advertising, we were the first to give users the choice to opt in to campaigns for products or services that they are interested in. Opt-in marketing campaigns empower consumers, and in turn generate better response rates and higher revenues for the advertisers.”
Recently Out There Media and Globe Telecom launched “McCafe Free Iced Drinks” promotion, aimed to drive awareness and redemption of McCafe’s iced drinks around downtown Manila. The campaign asked consumers their preferred drink out of three choices, involving a call-to-action in order to receive the free drink. It generated an 18% response rate, considerably higher than the rate for normal mobile display ads. Out of all respondents, 89% proceeded with redeeming the free drinks, proving that the campaign succeeded in driving consumers to the McCafes and trying the iced drinks.
Another successful promotion was executed in Jakarta, titled “Pantene-Carrefour SMS Voucher Campaign” with XL. After the two-day campaign in April 2011, through the XL X-tra mobile advertising platform, the best response rate generated was 36.4%, and the average was 21.4%, signifying high acceptance of the campaign.
Earlier this year, Out There Media announced findings from a joint whitepaper released by the company and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), indicating that the average conversion rate for opt-in marketing is at 25.15%, 20 times higher than the response rate for direct marketing, and significantly higher than web advertising – where 0.2% response rate is considered a success.
Mark Koh, senior industry analyst of ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, said, “Asia is a very diverse market, with several countries where Internet users are low and mobile Internet users may lead online users.” Koh noted that the increasing capabilities and adoption of smartphones, adds to the attractiveness of mobile despite the challenges in perceived intrusiveness, personal data acquisition, privacy and control of usage of personal data.
According to Koh, mobile advertising revenues in APAC are forecast to rise at a compounding rate of 17% for 2010-2015 with Japan, China, South Korea and Australia contributing significantly to total advertising revenues. However, he predicts that several other countries in Asia would be growing more rapidly during this period, with countries like Indonesia and Philippines projected to grow at a CAGR of 96% and 59% respectively.
Out There Media’s opt-in subscribers in Malaysia reached 3.5 million this year since its June 2010 launch. Its permission-based mobile advertising platform with Globe Telecom in the Philippines called My Rewards, My Globe Plus, has already signed up over two million opt-in subscribers since its launch less than a year earlier.
